Celebrity game in one sentence
The Celebrity game, often called Celebrities, is a team party game where players guess a shared pool of famous names over several rounds. It is also commonly known as Fishbowl, Salad Bowl, the Hat Game or the Name Game. It is a guessing game, not a celebrity trivia quiz: players normally move from open description to one-word clues and finally silent acting.
How the classic game is set up
Traditionally, everyone writes celebrity names on slips of paper and puts them into a hat, bowl or container. The group splits into two teams and takes timed turns drawing names for teammates to guess.
Celebrity Salad keeps that same social format but replaces the paper slips, timer and manual scoring with one shared iPhone or iPad, and supports two to four teams.
The three common rounds
Round 1: describe the celebrity
Use as many words as you like without saying the celebrity's name. This round introduces the full pool and creates the memorable clues everyone relies on later.
Round 2: one word
All of the names return, but the clue-giver gets exactly one word. The round works because players already know which celebrities are in the game.
Round 3: act it
The same names return again. This time there is no speaking, so teams depend on gestures plus everything they remember from the first two rounds.
Why does the same name pool repeat?
Each round adds a layer of shared context. If somebody described David Beckham as “that footballer who married a Spice Girl” in Round One, the word “Spice” might be enough in Round Two. By Round Three, an exaggerated free-kick can trigger the same memory.
That feedback loop is why the game gets faster, stranger and more personal as it goes on. A poor clue can become more memorable than a good one.
Celebrity vs Charades
Charades normally asks players to act a fresh prompt without speaking. Celebrity uses a repeated pool of names across multiple clue styles. Acting is only one stage of the game, and by the time it arrives the room already knows every possible answer.
If you want more games built around acting and guessing, see our games like Charades.
Celebrity, Fishbowl and Salad Bowl
These names often describe the same broad format, although house rules vary. “Celebrity” usually emphasises famous people. “Fishbowl” and “Salad Bowl” often allow a wider range of people, characters, objects or phrases. The repeated-pool, multi-round structure is the common thread.
See our Fishbowl and Salad Bowl guide for a fuller comparison.
What Celebrity Salad changes
The app keeps the parts that make the paper game social: private submissions, one shared device, competing teams and face-to-face clue-giving. It automates the fiddly parts: shuffling, timer, score, round changes and Undo.
For the exact app rules, use the official Celebrity Salad rules.